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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872398">Knitting is Soldier’s Work</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trudemaethien/pseuds/Trudemaethien'>Trudemaethien</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bacara Knits - Soft Wars [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>21st Nova Corps - Freeform, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Coping, Fiber Arts, Hurt No Comfort, I named a shiny and then cried when I killed him, Introspection, Knitting, M/M, Marines, Military, Minor Character Death, Multi, No comfort YET I promise the rest of the series will be fluffy and soft, Planet Mygeeto (Star Wars), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, Young Din Djarin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:06:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,779</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872398</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trudemaethien/pseuds/Trudemaethien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Bacara of the 21st Nova Corps learns to knit socks during the war. What prayers does he loop into the fabric he makes for the feet of his Marines?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-1138 | Bacara/CT-7567 | Rex, CC-1138 | Bacara/Kit Fisto/CT-7567 | Rex, Kit Fisto/CT-7567 | Rex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bacara Knits - Soft Wars [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196264</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Open Source Soft Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Knitting is Soldier’s Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23817703">Honor Guard</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506">Project0506</a>.
        </li>
        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23981401">The Slow Road Home</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506">Project0506</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set in the Soft Wars AU by Project0506</p><p>Bacara speaks the Journeyman Protector dialect of mando’a rather than standard mando’a, because on Kamino he was the trainee of a former JMP Cuy’val Dar, Cort Davin.<br/>Tat- sibling, equivalent to vod in standard; plural tate<br/>Teil- parent, equivalent to buir in standard</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Bacara is an expert in more things than warfare. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Accumulating this expertise began during ground movements over vehicle-averse terrain. A civilian walking for several hours alongside their staggered-column roadmarch formation busies her hands with a little project. When she notices them watching her, she doesn’t shy away. Instead she smiles, displays what she’s doing, exaggerates her movements, and explains aloud how she’s doing it. Their attention is rapt and intrigued as she demonstrates the double ended needles, the yarn looping through and holding itself, and the fabric growing as she works. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bacara’s command training makes him consider a reprimand on the basis of military decorum but he dismisses it. He is just as eager to learn new things as any tat, and this activity is neither dis-allowed nor disruly. She encourages them to pass around her newly finished sock for their curious inspection while she begins another. His decision is vindicated; when droid scouts spot them and engage, Shard Company of Nova Corps reacts just as quickly and efficiently as they’d been trained. (If protecting a civilian happens to lay within their purview as well, then so it does).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they part ways, she insists on giving them her needles and yarn, as well as the finished pair of socks. She assures them she has many more and won’t miss these in the least; in fact she wishes she had more to give them than a few paltry scraps. But her gift of knowledge outstrips the value of the materials easily. This is how the skill of knitting catches hold and is soon ubiquitous among all the companies of Nova. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That first ball of yarn runs out almost immediately. They take turns unraveling the socks and re-knitting them as practice, but it swiftly becomes apparent they need to source more material. Being behind the blockade has been a steep education on how to supplement requisitions and make everything last as long as possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>High in the icy mountain overpass, a trooper plucks tufts of thick white hair from jagged crystal snags. He ventures, “Feels kind of like yarn, doesn’t it, sir?” and thus they find a lead on how to get more. Bacara steadily edits their marching orders, never changing their objective, rally points, or check-in times, but allowing their path to meander as they follow traces of the mountain creatures leaving the tufts of yarn wool. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they catch up to the creatures, they are under the care of a group of shepherds, who are blessedly amused by their quest. “Got more than enough for every village ‘round to be well-clothed and furnished comfortable-like, and then some! These fluffy bastards don’t ever stop fleecing! We have to shear them nigh on every tenday just so they don’t get caught by their locks on the crystal walls, or gum up the narrow passes with matted webs of snagged hair. It’s why we’re here today!” It takes some negotiating for transport, but Dreich, Nova’s quartermaster, manages to set up a supply chain for them in addition to what they carry away. They’ll be planetside for long enough to receive additional shipments, projections show. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The youngest shepherd is dispatched to lead them on the “only quick </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> safe” route down the other side of the peaks. The eldest shepherd advises them where to “rest their boots” as well. “My old sister on the moraine, she can show you boys how to drop spindle so ye aren’t stuck finger-twisting yarn; it’ll be worth it- she won’t keep ye long, very simple skill. I’d show ye myself but we hadn’t brought us any spindles up here this shear-run.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(The sister on the moraine wants to feed them, too, but there’s no way an entire Nova’s-worth of food is coming out of her stewpot, so Bacara regretfully declines. He will take no more than the least his men may have. It smells like… he regrets it already).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they troop into the semi-secured area that will become their next base, Bacara sees that Mundi has come in by transport from wherever he’s been the last few days, while they were scaling mountains. Mundi obviously notices the fleecy bundles but doesn’t interfere, which Bacara appreciates. As long as their activities don’t disrupt the ‘peace’, they can get away with just about anything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The newest Marines are given thick yarn and wide, blunt-tipped needles to start; socks knit up quick that way. It’s a quick boost of confidence, a flash-training for technique, and then they build complexity onto that base skill. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bacara, though, has refined his sock-making to an art form. Every moment his hands are not otherwise occupied, he devotes to knitting. (So he can tell the truth when he says his hands never shake. They are always too busy to start shaking).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He favors the very slimmest needles. He has his own set, specced and fabbed himself. They are metal instead of the more popular wood, pointy not-quite-sharp, four of them. There’s a slot for one in his vambrace. The other three are always occupied. Each needle is as long as his palm is wide, pointed at both ends, and a bare 1.5 millimeter in diameter; any slimmer and they bend too easily. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cold of the metal bites his hands sometimes. He has to mill-print needles often; a great many ultimately become the cause of death for enemies. He scrounges for metal scraps to supplement his gear-fabrication allowance, and some of his Marines notice. They start bringing him shiny trinkets like eager magpies. It seems like justice to use the bones of droids to equip and arm himself. (Against the enemy sentients whose lives his general values above, or ‘theoretically equal to’ those of clones, he thinks bitterly, and then must backtrack to clear the tainted patch from his work.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries using cotton thread once, and decides he definitely prefers the tightly twisted Mygeetan wool. It’s warmer, softer, feels better in his hands. The natural waterproofing of wool smells comforting, if not exactly pleasant. Lanolin, it’s called. They first discover that it soothes the cold-cracked skin and blisters they all have from either option of wearing their gear all the time or of not wearing it, leading to exposure. It also speeds healing, keeps skin moisturized and protected from the ice, and is superior to what they’re issued, for cleaning leather and metal. Very handy. The scent permeates the entire corps these days. It’s a good thing they have room to store the tonnage of wool that continues to flow down from the crystal mountains. He suspects word has traveled the entire range and their shipments come from many more generous places like that first community they met. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(His fingers ache from touching the cold metal until he makes knit gloves to go under his armored ones. Each finger is a tiny round. He rips it back again and again until it fits his hand perfectly, moves without hampering his every motion. He actually writes down and saves his finalized notes for the complex adjustments instead of trying to keep them in his head. He sends the file to Rex, who he trusts to keep it secure in case he loses all his hardware. He needs the backup to be sent to him at least three times).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cast on a new sock: two rows of loops, cleverly interlaced, like squads standing back to back. A different knitter, from a lowland town, had shown him this clever trick to make a seam not a seam and Bacara values the advanced knowledge highly. No ridge of sewn-together stitches means less chafing on toes; the civilians merely valued it for aesthetic reasons. That man had done them a bigger favor than he knew. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his opinion, toe-up also gives the loops of the fabric the correct directional friction for heavy foot activity. Most of the men think top-down is easier and better, but he doesn’t bother with it. He notes field-use observations in his mental datacache, but definitely doesn’t tell anyone about it. Certainly, he would be quietly mocked for such a frivolous study of subtle details. About socks. (Just like the shebse call Rex, he’s a ‘karking nerd’ too). The Marines acknowledge that he is one of the rare masters of toe-up, and will mill about silently but markedly closer to him whenever he begins a new sock, trying to see how it works and if they can, or want, to attempt it too. Being at the center of this kind of quiet gathering of his men, even if everyone involved is pretending not to notice it happening, warms him in a way the cold can never touch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first couple rounds are done on the two cast-on needles. The third needle is to knit with initially and the fourth is secured in his sleeve. When he has enough room to pull the two needles apart, he divides the stitches onto three needles equally, and takes out the fourth to knit with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He adds increases on only one side of the faux-seam, mirroring the actual shape and slant of a foot. This will be a left sock. Most tate start out just making tubes, gathered at one end. Those tate get blisters, then learn how to straight-seam and turn a heel, and get smaller blisters. Bacara doesn’t get blisters because his socks rub. They fit perfectly. He gets blisters because it is impossible not to in this climate, especially when one is on their feet as much as is required of a marshal commander. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>These sorts of thoughts pass through his mind as he starts a sock. They’re routine thoughts for the most part, comfortable, and soon the tricky part at the toe is done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then it’s just rounds for a while and his thoughts can wander further afield while his hands move by rote. One of the drawbacks to using such slim needles is that he must make so many more stitches for each round to be the necessary size. The big chunky starter yarn and needles is hm, 24? Stitches per round, on average? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does 81 (a nice multiple of threes) on his slim needles and with a somewhat lighter-weight yarn, pulling the tension snug. His progress is proportionally slower, but the result is superior; the fabric is dense but not bulky. The stitch-loops are not easily seen through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some of these socks are for himself. It’s not selfish to take care of his own feet first, not when so many are relying on him to keep standing firm. But he makes many more than he could ever use, and these he gives to his men. So he…well. It seems somewhat foolish perhaps, but the Force of the Jedi is not a foolish thing, and Mundi isn’t always spouting philosophies of pacifism when he says the Force is in everything. So with each motion of his hands, Bacara imagines imbuing the piece he’s making with...something. In each loop is the vode an, or the strengths, encouragements and exhortations. Blessings for speed and stealth, health and creed. Lives, remembrances, hopes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He marks each neat row that will be stepped upon and worn thin by heel and ball of foot, each stitch that will support the arches of his marines as they leap, the ribbing that will hug ankle bones and queue up past achilles tendons. A single sock takes him, uninterrupted, about three standard hours. In that short time he wraps as much care into it as he can. He pours out love and hope through his fingertips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>On a small rural planet where they stop to restock, the locals wear cloth of a dark red so close to their Marine maroon, it pings their peripheral vision every time they see it. Bacara feels a miniscule amount of guilt when he adds a line in the official orders to the local-liaisons team, to find out how the people of Aq Vetina make that color. It is a tactical concern, after all. A kid sitting on a cellar door gives them a clue: he’s only the size of a first or second-cycle cadet but he’s big enough to do the job of carefully peeling the dried skins off a native strain of allium plant, to save instead of throw away. He brings the basket of dried plant skin to his nearby parent who dumps them into the boiling laundry vat, and the water turns red. By proxies, Bacara manipulates Mundi’s interest towards acquiring seeds of this allium for his hydroponic system. He also tasks the shipboard organic waste compost team to separate the appropriate bits out, like the kid had been. His Marines are all gleefully motivated to ensure the stealthy success of this op. They’re going to get marine-maroon socks out of it! Sometimes the simplest diversions are the most gratifying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He later hears that droids descended upon Aq Vetina almost immediately after they’d left, but there were no orders to return and defend the town; there wasn’t any valuable military objective to protect there. Just people, Bacara mourns, and doesn’t know which he hopes for more: that the kid escaped with his life or that he escaped into death. Onward marches the war machine, upon feet like his own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When his thoughts turn dark like this, he frogs the affected section of his knitted fabric and re-winds the yarn, smoothing it through his fingers and mentally apologizing to dissipate the negativity. Despair and grief will not save his men. It will not lend swiftness or surety to their steps. Emotions such as these are not adequate inner-boot support. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He focuses on turning a heel, the count of the short rows spanning less and less back and forth, and thinks of the Day that is approaching. Then he picks up all the ends of the short rows and returns to knitting the full round. Patience. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Half his palm width (half a needle length) above the heel, he begins ribbing to make the cuffs tighter and stretchier. It’s a different rhythm. Up-down he thinks at first, or front-back. Knit and </span>
  <em>
    <span>purl</span>
  </em>
  <span>, an elder laughingly informs him, is what the opposite stitches are called, when they bivouac near another friendly community. (Not every community is friendly… he swiftly blockades that flow of thought and only has to take out a few stitches.) Instead, he starts again. Is a purl called that because it looks like a sphere sitting half buried in sand? Pearls come from the sea, he lets the thoughts float onto the shores of his mind as his hands move and make. It makes him think of Rex’s Jedi, to whom he’d been introduced once. (Kit Fisto, lekku draped over the shoulders of a fisherman’s cabled gansey...he relishes the mental image. But it’s bad luck to knit a gift for your unmarried lover; younger knitters swear by the boyfriend curse. Does it carry over to the gorgeous lover of one’s lover?) Those socks he makes sure to keep for himself, not wanting to inflict the lust-soaked thoughts and memories permeating them upon anyone else. It makes him smile wistfully when he slides them onto his feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They get soaked with blood (not his, this time) and torn. He says goodbye and lets them go, because he knows to his very marrow that everything good always ends. Nothing in all his thirteen years has ever proven him wrong. He suppresses hope for himself; it’s too painful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a speedie with skinny ankles, on whom the usual socks bunch and slide down, he makes a pair with tighter cabling instead of ribbing and shrugs off the tat’s worshipful gratitude. Bacara gruffly orders him to sit down and watch how to cable so he can make himself another pair when those are done for. The kid soaks it up. A few weeks later, cabled socks on skinny ankles catch his eye, limp feet sticking out from under one of the casualty tarps behind the med tent. The kid had been new enough that he hadn’t had a name until after Bacara had last spoken to him alive. Apparently, his personal attention had netted the shiny, “Kihcara,” since there had already been a “Cable” in their platoon. He swallows down bitter, impotent rage (he cannot be anyone’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Teil</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not here), and shows more people how to twist cables in remembrance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels sorrowfully foolish sometimes, when he is pressing a kiss to the bind off, in the guise of snapping yarn with his teeth. It never stops him from placing this one last seal of affection, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Click-click, click-click, click-click. Time passes through his hands like red-dyed wool. Wartime, too shall pass. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Other mando’a:<br/>Shebse- standard mando’a, asses. The name of the CC squad of Cody, Wolffe, Ponds, and Bly (+Rex, adopted)<br/>Vode an- mandalorian war chant the whole army knows.</p><p>Thanks to Ace’buir for beta reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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